In Jimmy Simpson Park there are little purple bedecked soccer players. An eight-year old girl wearing a hijab is preparing to shoot on the goalie. Nervous, very nervous, she runs up and kicks the ball which bounces past the goaltender. Astonished, she turns around to face the rest of the team, her fingers clenched in her mouth. “I scored!” she shrieked. She jumps up and down, and then there’s a tiny, little roar as the other girls run forward to give her high fives and hugs.
On the baseball diamond a team is practicing softball. It’s a gay team, primarily made up of men, and they’re called Woody’s Woodpeckers. They’re horrible, with many of the men fleeing the ball as if it were a hand grenade. Those that do come in contact with it, fling it while not looking, their heads turned as if it were something utterly repellant to them. The one gay girl on the team is all Tom Boy and chewing guy. She has her socks smartly drawn up like a pro from the 1920’s and is running circles around the giggling men. A team of lesbians would destroy Woody’s Woodpeckers.
The first baseman is heavy, dramatic and chatty and he’s having one of the best times of his life. He can’t stop shouting-out encouragements, and when his boyfriend comes up– or maybe just the man he wants to be his boyfriend– he begins fanning himself with his baseball glove, beads of sweat all over his face, and screams, “The Caribbean Dream, Lordy how you make me swoon, you’re a hurricane darling! Hit it now, hit it!”